Gilgal: practical realization of death

The power of resurrection-life takes all strength from Satan:
"He who is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one
toucheth him not." In our earthly life, the flesh being in us, we
are exposed to the power of the enemy, though Christ's grace is
sufficient for us, His strength made perfect in weakness; but the
creature has no strength against Satan, even though it should not be
drawn away into actual sin. But if death is become our shelter,
causing us to die unto all that would give Satan an advantage over us,
what can he do? Can he tempt one who is dead, or overcome one who,
having died, is alive again? But, if this be true, it is also
necessary to realise it practically. "Ye are dead . . . therefore
mortify" (Col. 3). This is what Gilgal means. Nay, we are always
to bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life
of Jesus may be manifested in our body (2 Cor. 4: 10) [1] .

The matter in hand was not yet the taking of cities, the
realisation of God's magnificent promises. Self must first of all be
mortified. Before conquering Midian, Gideon must cast down the altar
that was in his own house.

Circumcision, the application of the Spirit's power to the
mortification of the flesh

Remark further, the wilderness is not the place where circumcision
is carried out, even though we may have been faithful there. The
wilderness is the character the world takes when we have been
redeemed, and where the flesh which is in us is actually sifted. But
death, and our entrance into heavenly places, judge the whole nature
in which we live in this world. But then, consequent upon our death
and resurrection with Christ, it is practically applied, and
circumcision is the application of the Spirit's power to the
mortification of the flesh in him who has fellowship with the death
and resurrection of Jesus (compare 2 Cor. 4: 10-12). Therefore Paul
says (Phil. 3), "We are the circumcision." As to an
outwardly moral life, Paul had that before. Had he now added true
piety to his religion of forms, the true fear of God to his good
works? It was far more than that. Christ had taken the place of all
in him -- first of all as to righteousness, which is the
groundwork. But further, the apostle says, "That I may know him,
and the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from among
the dead." Therefore it is in "pressing towards the
mark" that he waits for the coming of Jesus to accomplish this
resurrection as to his body.

The circumcision of Christ

In the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter 2, he speaks to us of the
circumcision of Christ. Is. it only that he has ceased to sin (the
certain effect indeed of this work of God)? No; for in describing this
work he adds, "Being buried with him in baptism, wherein also we
are risen with him, through faith of the operation of God who hath
raised him from the dead." The consequences of this heavenly life
are found in Colossians 3: 1, which is in immediate connection with
the verse just quoted. Here also the work is crowned by the
manifestation of the saints with Jesus when He shall appear. Not the
rapture; the heavenly part is omitted in Colossians, save that our
life is hid there, and that what is there is an object of hope; we are
made meet for it, which indeed is just what is done here.

Our Gilgal

Our Gilgal is in verse 5: "Mortify therefore." It is not
"die to sin." Mortify is active power. It rests on the power
of that which is already true to faith: "Ye are dead: mortify
therefore." This being the standing, it is realised. "Reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead," said the apostle (Rom. 6), when
speaking on the same subject [2] . This is the practical power of the
type of the stones brought from Jordan. They are a symbol of our
place, being the result of death with Christ who was dead [3] . But
we are also raised up together with Him [4] , as
having died with Him. But there is another aspect of truth, we were
dead in sins. He came down in grace where we were, on the way down,
so to speak, atoning for our sins. God has quickened us together with
Him, having forgiven us all trespasses [5]. All that
He did was for us; and now, associated with Him in life, united to Him
by the Spirit, I am also sitting in, not yet with, Him in heavenly
places [6] . I appropriate to myself, or rather God ascribes to me,
all that He has done, as though it had happened to myself: He is dead
to sin, in Him I am dead to sin. Therefore I can "mortify":
which I could not do as being still alive in the flesh. Where was the
nature, the life, to do it in? I am risen with Him; I am also in Him
sitting in heavenly places. But here it is not the Ephesian doctrine
-- which teaches the purpose and counsels of God, and, Christ being
exalted to the right hand of God, shews the simple act of divine power
which takes us when dead in sins and sets us in Him -- it is the
process, so to speak, through which we pass as having been alive (not
dead) in sins, and passes us through death, in Christ, into a better
life. The other is equally true, so I have spoken of it; but, it is
the change, the essential but subjective change spoken of in
Colossians as far as death and resurrection with Him go, which is our
present subject in Joshua.

The mortification of our members accomplished through grace

Now, circumcision being the practical application of that of which
we have been speaking -- the death of Christ to sin, to all that is
contrary to our risen position, "the body of the flesh" --
we remember the death of Christ, and the mortification of our members
on the earth is accomplished through grace, in the consciousness of
grace. Otherwise it would only be the effort of a soul under the law,
and in this case there would be a bad conscience and no strength. This
is what sincere monks attempted; but their efforts were not made in
the power of grace, of Christ and His strength. If there was
sincerity, there was also the deepest spiritual misery. In order to
mortify there must be life; and if we have life, we have already died
in Him who died for us.

The stones set up in Gilgal were taken out of the midst of Jordan,
and Jordan was already crossed before Israel was circumcised. The
memorial of grace and of death, as the witness to us of a love which
wrought out our salvation, by taking up our sins in grace, and dying
to sin once, stood in the place where death to sin was to be
effected. In that He died, He died unto sin once; and we reckon
ourselves dead to sin. Christ dying for sins, in perfect love, in
unfailing efficacy, and His death to sin, give us peace through His
blood as to both, but also enable us through grace to reckon ourselves
dead to sin, and to mortify our members which are on earth.

In every circumstance, then, we must remember that we are dead, and
say to ourselves, If through grace I am dead, what have I to do with
sin, which supposes me to be alive? Christ is in this death in the
beauty and in the power of His grace; it is deliverance itself, and
introduction morally into the condition in which we are made meet to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. As to the
glory, as running the race down here, the apostle says, "I follow
after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of
Christ Jesus." But that is another subject.

The life of a risen man

Thus, in being dead, and only thus, will the reproach of Egypt be
taken away. Every mark of the world is a reproach to him who is
heavenly. It is only the heavenly man who has died with Christ that
disentangles himself from all that is of Egypt. The life of the flesh
always cleaves to Egypt; but the principle of worldliness is uprooted
in him who is dead and risen with Christ and living a heavenly life.
There is in the life of man, alive as such in this world (Col. 2: 20),
a necessary link with the world as God sees it, that is, corrupt and
sinful; with a dead man there is no such link. The life of a risen man
is not of this world; it has no connection with it. He who possesses
this life may pass through the world, and do many things that others
do. He eats, works, suffers; but, as to his life and his objects, he
is not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world. Christ,
risen and ascended up on high, is his life; he subdues his flesh, he
mortifies it, for in point of fact he is down here, but he does not
live in it. The camp was always at Gilgal. The people -- the
army of Jehovah -- returned thither, after their victories and their
conquests. If we do not do the same, we shall be feeble: the flesh
will betray us. We shall fall before the enemy in the hour of
conflict, even though it may be honestly entered into in the service
of God. It is at Gilgal the monument of the stones from Jordan is set
up; for if the consciousness of being dead with Jesus is necessary to
enable us to mortify the flesh, it is through this mortification that
we attain to the practical knowledge of what it is to be thus dead.

We do not realise the inward communion (I am not speaking now of
justification), the sweet and divine enjoyment of the death of Jesus
for us, if the flesh is unmortified. It is impossible. But if we
return to Gilgal, to the blessed mortification of our own flesh, we
find there all the sweetness (and it is infinite), all the powerful
efficacy of this communion with the death of Jesus, with the love
manifested in it. "Always bearing about in the body," says
the apostle, "the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of
Jesus might be manifested in our body." Thus we do not remain in
Jordan; but there remains in the heart all the preciousness of this
glorious work, a work which the angels desire to look into, which is
for us, and which Christ, in His love, appropriates to us. We find Him
with us at Gilgal -- a place of no outward show or victory to attract
the eyes of men; but where He, who is the source of all victory, is
found in the power and the communion which enable us to overcome.

[1] Colossians 3 is God's declaration of our position; Romans 6
exhortation to take it up in faith; 2 Corinthians 4 carrying it out in
practice in the inner man (Col. 3: 5-17).

[2] We have three steps in this process: God's judgment, "Ye are
dead"; the recognition of it by faith, "Reckon yourselves
dead"; and the carrying it out in practice, "always bearing
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus."

[3] The Epistle to the Romans gives, in the desert, faith's estimate
of the position which Christ's death has given to us, of death to sin
and life to God in this world, as involved in our being saved by His
death into which we were baptised, but our resurrection which takes us
out of the desert, and is Colossians and Jordan.

[4] Thus far the Colossians.

[5] Thus far, also, the Colossians; but we are not viewed there as
dead in sins, but as having lived in them, now dead and risen.

[6] This is Ephesian teaching. And this is God's sovereign act of
power which has taken us when dead in sins and put us into Christ.

The twelve stones set up in the midst of Jordan

But there were also twelve stones set up in the midst of Jordan;
and indeed, if we apply the power of the death of Christ to mortify
the flesh, the heart -- exercised in, and fully enjoying heavenly
things -- loves to turn again to Jordan, to the place where Jesus went
down in the power of life and obedience, and to gaze upon that Ark of
the Covenant, which stood there, and stayed those impetuous waters
till all the people had passed over. One loves, now that He is risen,
while viewing the power of death in all its extent, to behold Jesus
there, who went down into it, but who destroyed its power for us. In
the overflowing of the nations, Christ will be the security and the
salvation of Israel; but He has been our security and our salvation
with respect to much more terrible enemies. The heart loves to stand
on the banks of that river -- already crossed -- and to realise, while
studying what Jesus was, the work and the wondrous love of Him who
went down into it alone, until all was accomplished. But in
one sense we were there. The twelve stones shew that the people had to
do with this work, although the ark was there alone when the waters
were to be restrained.

The Psalms and Jordan

In the Psalms we can especially there contemplate the Lord, now
that we are in peace on the other side the stream. Oh, that the
Christian -- each one in the assembly -- knew how to seat himself
there, and there meditate on Jesus gone down into death alone, and
death when it overflowed all its banks, bearing its sting and the
power of divine judgment with it! In doctrine the Psalms set forth
also the connection between the death of Jesus and the residue of
Israel passing through the waters of tribulation in the last days.

In Canaan, at Gilgal

Behold, then, the people out of Egypt and in Canaan, according to
the faithfulness of 'God's promise; but as yet nothing of Canaan
possessed, nor any victory gained. It is a type for us of what is
taught in the Colossians: made meet to be partakers, but the
inheritance of the saints in light still in hope [7] ; not only
redeemed out of Egypt, but brought into Canaan, the reproach of Egypt
being rolled away, and the people of God having taken their place at
Gilgal -- the true circumcision of heart of which we have spoken.

Israel encamped at Gilgal.

The Passover kept in the Land, the memorial of accomplished
salvation

The character of their communion with God is then pointed out,
before their victories. They keep the passover in the plains of
Jericho. Jehovah prepared a table before them in the presence of their
enemies.

The blood was no longer sprinkled, as in Egypt, upon the lintel and
the two side-posts, that they might be sheltered from the destroyer,
and preserved from the last judgment which spread terror throughout
every house where the blood was not seen.

We need this aspect of the blood of Christ, while judgment
threatens in the territory of sin and Satan, although called of God to
come out of it. God's justice and our consciences require it. But here
the passover is no longer this; it is the memorial of accomplished
salvation. Neither is it participation by grace in the power of the
death and resurrection of Christ. It is the soul's communion; it is
the sweet spiritual recollection of a work all His own, of His death
as a lamb without blemish. We feed upon it, as His redeemed people, in
the enjoyment of this position in the land of promise and of God -- a
land which belongs to us in consequence of this redemption, and of our
being raised up with Christ. The death of Jesus can only be thus
enjoyed on the other side of Jordan, as risen with Him. Then, in
peace, in fellowship with Him, and with ineffable feelings of
thankfulness, we return to the death of the Lamb; we contemplate it;
we feed upon it. Our heavenly happiness and intelligence only
increase our sense of its preciousness.

The old corn of the Land

On the morrow after the passover the people ate of the old corn of
the land. Thus, raised up, and in title and nature suited to it, and
taking our place thus in fitness and hope in the heavenly places, it
is Christ known as heavenly who feeds the soul, and maintains it in
vigour and in joy [8] . From thenceforward, also, the manna
ceased. This is the more remarkable, because Christ, we know, is the
true manna, but Christ down here, Christ after the flesh, and suited
to man, and to his wants in the wilderness; nor will He ever be
forgotten as such. I contemplate Jesus (God manifest in the flesh)
with adoration. My soul feeds upon the mighty attractions of His grace
in His humiliation; delights in the blessed testimony of His love who
bore our sorrows and carried our sicknesses, and learns to be nothing
and serve, in Him who took the lowest place. It is in this He
ministers to the secret affections of the heart as we pass through
this world; still in that condition He remained alone. The corn of
wheat must fall into the ground and die; otherwise it abides alone.

But -- while knowing what He has been -- it is a Christ seated
above, who came from above, who died and is raised again, and ascended
up where He was before, whom I now know. His death, of the memorial of
which we have spoken, is undoubtedly the basis of all. There is
nothing more precious: but it is a heavenly Christ with whom we have
now to do as the living One. For the rest, we remember Him in His
humiliation and death; but this He gives us as its character. Even in
the Lord's supper, analogous to the passover here celebrated it was
"Do this in remembrance of me." And so in all His life, it
was in the wilderness, and suited to us for the wilderness also; it
is, in our little measure, in heart or in fact, the fellowship of His
sufferings.

Christ, the heavenly Man, our present portion

We contemplate, while seeking to imitate, the precious model which
He has set before us, as a heavenly man upon the earth. But, beholding
with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. He has for
our sakes sanctified Himself, that we might be sanctified through the
truth. We delight ourselves with the contemplation of all His grace
here below; our affections are drawn out by a suffering
Saviour. Nothing more precious than the Son of God winning the
confidence of man's heart to God by His love in their midst when far
from Him; but our present fellowship is with a Christ in heaven. And
the Christ, whom we know on earth, is a heavenly Christ, and not an
earthly Christ, as He will be to the Jews by-and-by. It was bread on
earth no doubt, but bread come down from heaven; and this is a very
important consideration. In passing through this wilderness (and we
are passing through it), Christ, as the manna, is infinitely precious
to us. His humiliation -- His grace -- comfort, also relieve, and
sustain us. We feel that He has passed through the same trials, and
our heart is sustained by the thought that the same Christ is
with. us. This is the Christ we need for the wilderness -- the bread
which came down from heaven: but, as a heavenly people, it is Christ,
as belonging to heaven and heavenly things, as associated with Him,
the old corn of the land; for it is to Christ ascended up on high that
we are united; it is there that He is our life. In a word, we feed on
heavenly things, on Christ above, on Christ humbled and dying indeed
as a sweet remembrance, but on Christ living as the present power of
life and grace. We feed on the remembrance of Christ on the cross;
this is the passover. But we keep the feast with a Christ who is the
centre of heavenly things, and feed upon them all (Col. 3: 1, 2). It
is the old corn of the land into which we have entered. For He
belongs to heaven.

Thus, before giving battle, in front of the very walls of Jericho
(representative of the enemy's power), God gives us to enjoy the fruit
of this heavenly land as being all our own. We remember the death of
Jesus, as redemption long since wrought out; and we feed on the old
corn of the land, on heavenly things, as our own present portion. For,
being risen with Christ by His grace, all is ours.

War, and the Captain of Jehovah's host

After this beautiful picture of the position and the privileges of
God's people, who -- according to God's own rights -- may enjoy
everything before engaging in a single battle, we find that war must
follow. But there is one thing necessary for making war and obtaining
blessings by conquest. Jehovah presented Himself as Captain of the
host; it is He Himself who leads us. He is there with a drawn sword in
His hand Faith owns no neutrality in heavenly things.* "And
Joshua said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he
said, Nay, but as captain of the host of Jehovah am I come."

Almighty Power and Infinite Holiness

Remark here that the presence of Jehovah, as Captain of the host,
as much demanded holiness and reverence, as when He came down to
redeem His people (Exodus 3) in that divine holiness and majesty which
were manifested according to their just requirements in the death of
Jesus, who gave Himself that He might magnify and establish them for
ever. Such as He was, who called Himself "I am," when He
thus came down in righteousness and majesty; such also is He when
standing in the midst of His people to bless and lead them in
conflict.

The almighty power of God is with the church in its warfare. But
His infinite holiness is there also, and He will not make good His
power in their conflicts if His holiness is compromised by the
defilement, the negligence, the heedless levity, of His people; or by
their failure in those feelings and affections which become the
presence of God, for it is God Himself who is there.

[7] Christ's state (only that He was actually raised) between His
resurrection and ascension helps to understand it. He belonged
evidently to heaven, not to this world, though He was not in heaven.

[8] Let us remark, also, that christian simplicity and sincerity, the
practical holiness of the christian life, the unleavened bread which
was eaten on the morrow after the passover, is a heavenly
thing. Nothing on this side Jordan can be this. It is of the growth of
that land; therefore it is connected with Jesus, and peace through His
death as a thing previous.

[9] I say, in heavenly things, because the heart is sensible of good
qualities in the creature. The Lord loved the rich young man when He
had heard his replies. But when a rejected and ascended Lord is to be
followed, the will always sets itself either for or against. Faith
knows this; it knows too the rights of God, and it maintains them.